California Rep. John Campbell won’t seek reelection in 2014, he announced on Thursday.

“I have decided that I will not seek re-election to represent California’s 45th Congressional district in 2014,” Campbell, a fifth-term Republican, said in a statement. “At the end of this term, I will have spent 14 years serving in full-time, elected politics. I am not nor did I ever intend to be a career politician. I am ready to begin a new chapter in my life.

“My passion for the conservative issues for which I have fought so vocally over that span has not waned,” he added. “But in the future, I will continue the fight for more freedom and a less authoritarian government as a private citizen rather than elected official.”

Campbell, a conservative who had a seat on the House Financial Services Committee and who represents the Orange County area, made the announcement on the Hugh Hewitt radio program. The veteran of California politics served in the state legislature between 2000 and 2005 before winning his congressional seat in a 2005 special election.

Republicans will be favored to keep the conservative-leaning 45th District seat; Mitt Romney received nearly 55 percent of the vote there in November.

Campbell is the fifteenth House member to announce that he won’t be seeking reelection next year.